Friday, September 30, 2011

I have discussed atheism in my blog a few times, and even have the word "atheist" in the title. It needs to be addressed, though, that being an atheist is not that important. Atheist, in the broadest definition, means "not a theist." It is actually quite easy to be an atheist; using such a definition, everyone is born an atheist because they need to be taught about god concepts before they can be a theist. Consequently, a person who is by definition an atheist can fall for stupid ideas just as easily as a theist. This ends up getting used against atheists in demonization tactics, the most common examples of atheists doing bad deeds being Stalin and Mao. Sometimes, even Kim Jong-il is brought up.

These people have fair points. These points, though, do nothing to prove their god claims, and are only intended to distract from that main argument, but they still should be addressed to clarify the use of the atheist label. When I use the "atheist" label to talk about myself or other atheists, I'm typically talking about skeptical atheists ONLY and I'll do my best to point out when I'm talking about non-skeptical atheists. (Skeptical atheists will even include atheists who have primarily Libertarian political view points as they have likely been skeptical about god claims, though not necessarily on said political views.)

Thursday, September 29, 2011

OK, maybe not all the cool kids...yet! Friendly Athiest, JT Eberhard, and Daylight Atheism haven't gone anywhere, but a number of other blogs (Pharyngula, Greta, Blag Hag) have moved to Freethought Blogs. Check 'em out!

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

So...I've been a little unmotivated to keep up with the blog this month. Part of it is that I have been reading, part is that I've been hitting the video games a bit too hard. So, I'm working on cutting down on the video gaming. Anyway, here's what I've got coming up on the blog:

A somewhat stale news story to cover, but it's on the Republican Presidential candidates, so it's still relevant.

An almost finished draft on skepticism. That should be up later today.

Friday, September 9, 2011

&nbsp&nbsp I had quite the odd dream sequence last night. I no longer remember the first part, but I'll pick up from where I do remember (I will only use first names or nicknames of people who showed up in my dream). I was heading to a requirements review meeting to be hosted by Ben and I think I was going through some sort of maze to get there. When I got to the meetig, though, it was instead hosted by Dooley. An odd part here is that the meeting was about discussing some one-line issue in display software about a bad comparison against an angle in radians when it should have been in degrees. The reasons this is odd is as follows:

I don't work in displays anymore, and haven't for 3 years.

We wouldn't have a meeting to discuss the existance of such an obvious issue.

The issue was that the number in radians was too large. That is completely backwards! The number representing an angle in radians is going to be smaller than that representing degrees. It appears I can not do angle math in my sleep.

&nbsp&nbsp There was also a woman and a man at this meeting that I don't know. Though, the woman at different points in the dream also became my Aunt Leona and a woman I knew in college named Angela. I blame my groomsmen Chris and Ryan (and mostly Chris) for the later.

&nbsp&nbsp But it was after Dooley left the meeting that things got really weird -- not that a meeting continuing after the host leaves wasn't odd enough. For some reason, we were looking at a simulation of the PFD display (much like the picture to the right). It was loading up and warning messages were popping up during the load. And the wierdest two messages popped up on the bottom of the attitude indicator: "RAPTURE1" and "RAPTURE2". Yes, that rapture. Now, I watched a presentation that talked about the raptue, specifically the 1972 film "A Theif in the Night". So, I kinda understand where that came from, or what sparked that...not sure why there were two messages, though. Anyway, in the dream, I said, "Yeah, that will never happen!" and something about the message being "useless" and, in a moment of dream rationality, asked "How is an aircraft supposed to detect the rapture anyway?!?" The mystery man in the room was not impressed. I was waiting for the "Your life has no meaning/purpose without God!" line, but it didn't come. (Perhaps the anticipation was enough in this dream state.) Then, somehow, I next found my self in a car -- I have no idea who was driving or where we were going -- but Scars was also in the car and starts singing. I think it was "Summer Nights". I think it may have actually been a mix of songs -- the others I cannot name -- but still quite crazy.

&nbsp&nbsp I don't remember much after that, and it wasn't before long that I woke up. I was disturbed most from just how fucked up that dream was.

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

I won't be there, but the Red River Freethinkers are putting on a convention called Project 42 on September 24. It's only one day, but with PZ Myers and Michael Shermer as speakers, it should be worth it.

Light the Night

I'm participating with the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's "Light the Night" walk. Help me out by going through my fundraising page. Or, you can donate through my wife Amy's page instead. Or try the widget that donates to my page, if it's working.